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New HPV Vaccination requirement for immigrants raises concerns
Federal immigration authorities now require immunization against human papillomavirus for female immigrants ages 11 to 26 who are seeking permanent residence.
The mandate by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services went into effect July 1, but advocacy groups were largely left in the dark about the new requirements, said Priscilla Huang, Reproductive Justice Project director and women's law fellow at the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum.
The vaccine cost tacks on about $375 to the status change fee of $1,410. It is also gender specific and the only vaccine for a sexually transmitted disease, leading some women's rights groups to believe the mandate is discriminatory.
The vaccine has been controversial since it was introduced to market two years ago. In February 2007, Gov. Rick Perry wanted to make the shot mandatory for all sixth-grade girls in Texas. The executive order was shot down.
Maria Elena Garcia-Upson, spokeswoman for Citizenship and Immigration Services in Dallas, said the vaccines are in no way meant to deny or deter people from the application process.
She said Citizenship and Immigration Services is simply following recommendations given by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There is funding for the vaccine through the CDC's Vaccines for Children program, but adult women may find it harder to pay for the shots.
"I think the public would agree that people who are coming into this country to adjust their status, if they have a contagious disease, we don't want that disease to be spread around," Ms. Garcia-Upson said.
Ana Correa, executive director of the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, said the cost of the vaccine will be another barrier for women seeking legal status. She said that application fees for immigrants have recently risen.
"What we have noticed is that applying for citizenship decreases as the fees go up," she said. "I don't think it's a coincidence that they're pushing for a policy that would provide a burden on immigrants."
Members of the U.S. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices confirmed that they recommend the vaccine for women, but the recommendation was not necessarily for a particular group.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is a CDC committee. Vaccine requirements are part of the Immigration and Nationality Act last amended by Congress in 1996, according to the CDC.
"ACIP makes vaccine recommendations based on scientific information using criteria such as burden of disease, efficacy, safety and cost effectiveness," said Dr. Dale Morse, the committee's chairman. "However, ACIP does not mandate the use of vaccines."
Nearly half of all sexually active men and women acquire HPV, according to the CDC. There are about 20 million Americans infected, and about 6.2 million people become newly infected yearly. Federal immigration authorities now require immunization against human papillomavirus for female immigrants ages 11 to 26 who are seek... more -
Oklahoma seeks source of deadly E. coli
(CNN) -- Oklahoma health officials said Friday they are searching for the source of a rare form of E. coli that has killed one person and sickened 116 others in the northeastern part of the state.
The subtype of bacteria -- called E. coli 0111 -- is "not normally found in this form of outbreak," said Leslea Bennett-Webb, director of communication for the Oklahoma State Department of Health.
More than 50 people have been hospitalized and nine people -- six of them children -- have been placed on dialysis, she said.
She said the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, helped state officials determine the subtype, but said the cause of the outbreak remains unknown.
"The focus has been narrowed to the Country Cottage Restaurant located in Locust Grove," she said, noting that most of the people who became ill ate there between August 15 and August 23.
Tests carried out on water from a well on restaurant property indicate the presence of bacteria, but "we have not been able to confirm what kind of bacteria," said Skylar McElhaney, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality.
The Oklahoma Department of Health will analyze them and compare them with samples taken from victims, she said. "We can't say for sure that it is tied to the water in any way, but we also cannot rule it out," she said.
Symptoms of infection with the bacteria can include severe diarrhea, bloody diarrhea, vomiting and severe abdominal cramping, said Larry Weatherford of the Oklahoma State Department of Health.
Management at the restaurant, which has closed during the investigation, was working closely with health officials, he added.
Meanwhile, the outbreak appears to be abating. "While we believe we are seeing a downward curve in the number of people who have become ill, we still have many challenges with some patients who remain hospitalized," said State Epidemiologist Dr. Kristy Bradley. "We continue to ask the public to be extra diligent in their hand washing and food preparation to minimize the possibility of additional persons becoming ill."
The CDC estimates there may be about 70,000 E. coli infections each year in the United States. (CNN) -- Oklahoma health officials said Friday they are searching for the source of a rare form of E. coli that has killed one person ... more -
The Salmonella Outbreak is Over
The Centers for Disease Control says the salmonella outbreak that sickened more than 1,440 people appears to be over.
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Meet the Tiger, a Bug With Extra Bite
When Sydney Williams moved last year from a condo to a house in the Pimmit Hills section of Falls Church, she relished the opportunity to hone her gardening skills in a yard of butterfly bushes, hydrangeas and perennials.
Her first summer of gardening, though, was "an absolute misery," the 43-year-old remembers. "The mosquitoes were awful -- morning, noon and night." And this summer hasn't been any better. "They attacked you so much, you didn't know where they were coming from," says Williams, who wore long sleeves, jeans and socks but still got bitten in places that weren't totally covered even after investing in "gallons" of bug sprays. "I wanted a yard to play in, not a yard to be eaten in," Williams says.
When she realized these mosquitoes were the probable source of the welts and hivelike rashes on her arms and legs, she called the Fairfax County Health Department. Having lived in southern Florida, she was accustomed to mosquito bites, but she had never seen a reaction like that. These mosquitoes, it turned out, were different from those she had encountered before. They were a species relatively new to the area, the Asian tiger mosquito.[more] When Sydney Williams moved last year from a condo to a house in the Pimmit Hills section of Falls Church, she relished the opportunity... more -
Weaponized Avian Flu !!!
This video viewed in conjuction with the video I posted on 500,000 hermetically sealed coffins ordered by FEMA and stored outside Atlanta. Along with news of 800 internment camps already in place across the US, something very big is about to unfold. No wonder the police around the country are being trained in the event of martial law. This video viewed in conjuction with the video I posted on 500,000 hermetically sealed coffins ordered by FEMA and stored outside Atla... more
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More HIV Infected Americans Than Previously Thought
It keeps getting worse!
"ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- There are more new cases of Americans infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, than previously believed, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Saturday.
About 56,000 people became infected with HIV in the past year, which translates to about 40 percent more cases than officials had estimated, said Dr. Kevin Fenton, director of the CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention.
Previous CDC estimates suggested about 40,000 new people were infected each year. But those estimates used "limited data and less precise methods," said the center, which is now using technology capable of determining when someone was infected.
The new method can indicate whether someone has been infected with HIV during the previous five months, rather than relying on statistical models.
"The fact that 56,000 Americans each year are contracting HIV for the first time is a wake-up call for all of us in the U.S.," Fenton said.
Diagnosis of HIV can occur years after infection, he said.
In the United States, more than 1 million people are living with HIV, and about one-fourth of them are unaware they have the virus, the CDC said.
According to the report, 53 percent of new HIV infections occur in homosexual or bisexual men. African-Americans account for 45 percent, or 25,000 new cases annually, meaning they are seven times more likely to contract HIV than whites.
In Washington, D.C., 80 percent of people living with HIV are African-American, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.
On Tuesday, the California-based think tank Black AIDS Institute released a report that suggests that the AIDS epidemic among African-Americans in parts of the United States is as severe as it is in parts of Africa.
If African-Americans made up their own country, it would rank 16th globally in the number of people living with HIV, said Black AIDS Institute founder Phill Wilson."
-Read more at the link.
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When are we going to start educating America about this disease? This epidemic is not being taught enough here! It keeps getting worse! ... more -
Fentanyl Kills Over 1,000 in 2 years
The "illegal" version of fentanyl was purchased from a pharmacy and then crushed up into heroin and other opioid narcotics to enhance their effects. They're using a clever word play to make it sound like it wasn't their drug that killed these people, but an "illegal" version.
More than 1,000 people died over two years from an illegal version of the painkiller fentanyl, the government reported Thursday in its first national tally of those deaths.
The wave of fentanyl overdoses first came to light in Chicago in 2005, and by 2006 more clusters were identified in Philadelphia, Detroit and other cities.
Hundreds of deaths from the drug were gradually reported, often episodically in local newspapers. Thursday's report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts the toll at 1,013 deaths from early April 2005 through late March 2007.
"This was really an epidemic," said Dr. Steven Marcus, the executive director of New Jersey's poison control center and a co-author of the new report.
Some deaths from illegal fentanyl still occur, but the worst of the outbreak seems to have ended after authorities shut down a fentanyl-making operation in Toluca, Mexico, in May 2006, said Dr. T. Stephen Jones, the study's lead author.
"It almost disappeared entirely. The shutting down of the Toluca facility was probably a major factor," said Jones, a consultant retired from the CDC.
The new report is being published this week in a CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Fentanyl is a prescription painkiller, often prescribed for cancer patients and administered through a patch. But it also is a powerful, euphoria-inducing narcotic, 30 to 50 times more potent than heroin.
Illegally made versions of the drug are sold as a powder, often mixed with cocaine or heroin, and sometimes used as a heroin replacement. It's possible some heroin addicts are unaware fentanyl is part of their injection, some experts say.
Smaller outbreaks of fentanyl-associated deaths in addicts have been reported before, including the "China White" outbreak of the 1980s, famed for being so deadly that drug users dropped dead with needles still in their arms.
The latest outbreak was first noted in Chicago. Patients who recovered from overdoses said they had been given free heroin in orange and pink plastic bags by new drug dealers trying to attract more customers.
The Chicago cases are summarized in the July issue of Clinical Toxicology.
It wasn't until a cluster of overdoses seen in Camden, N.J., emergency rooms in April 2006 that federal officials were notified of the problem, by Marcus.
The resulting investigation was unusual, because some health officials have been reluctant to spend time and energy investigating deaths related to illicit drugs, Marcus said.
"The response when I deal with public health officials is; 'Drug abuse is a dangerous habit, and drug abusers know it's a dangerous habit, so why are we making a big deal out of it?'" he said.
The report distinguished deaths due to illegally made fentanyl from those due to illicit use of the pharmaceutical product. Medical examiners cannot tell the difference from what's seen in an autopsy, so investigators relied on drugs found at the scene and other information to separate the two.
Also, the investigators did not count cases in every city. The tally covers only two states — New Jersey and Delaware — and the cities of Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia and St. Louis.
National health statistics show the death rate from unintentional drug poisonings — most of them illicit drug overdoses — roughly doubled from 1999 to 2005.
You can do further research by clicking these links:
http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr&...
http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.tandf.co.uk/jour... The "illegal" version of fentanyl was purchased from a pharmacy and then crushed up into heroin and other opioid narcotics t... more -
Government to release revised US HIV estimates
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday it will soon release long-awaited revised estimates of how many Americans become infected with the AIDS virus every year.
Activists have been saying the numbers are sharply higher and have been urging the CDC to release the numbers.
In June, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he believed the numbers had risen from 40,000 to 50,000 a year, although the CDC denied he had seen the new estimates.
Late on Tuesday, the CDC said it would release the new estimates on August 3 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday it will soon release long-awaited revised estimates of how many Am... more -
Mississippi Remains Fattest State, CDC Reports
The South tips the scales again as the nation's fattest region, according to a new government survey.
More than 30 percent of adults in Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee are considered obese. In part, experts blame Southern eating habits, poverty and demographic groups that have higher obesity rates.
Colorado was the least obese, with about 19 percent fitting that category in a random telephone survey done last year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The 2007 findings are similar to results from the same survey the three previous years. Mississippi has had the highest obesity rate every year since 2004. But Alabama, Tennessee, West Virginia and Louisiana have also clustered near the top of the list, often so close that the difference between their rates and Mississippi's may not be statistically significant. The South tips the scales again as the nation's fattest region, according to a new government survey. ... more -
Climate Change Testimony Cover-up
Cheney’s Office Sought to Change Climate Testimony
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Seeking to play down the effects of global warming, Vice President Dick Cheney's office pushed to delete from congressional testimony references about the consequences of climate change on public health, a former senior EPA official claimed Tuesday.
The official, Jason K. Burnett, said the White House was concerned that the proposed testimony last October by the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention might make it tougher to avoid regulating greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere.
Burnett's assertion, which he made in a July 6 letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, conflicts with the White House explanation at the time that the deletions reflected concerns by the White House Office of Science and Technology over the accuracy of the science.
Boxer, in a news conference on Tuesday, went so far as to say White House press secretary Dana Perino had lied about why the White House had pushed for the deletions. That, in turn, prompted Perino to demand an apology from Boxer.
''I have never said such a thing about a fellow public servant, and I wouldn't if I didn't have all the facts,'' Perino said from Japan, where President Bush is attending a meeting of world economic leaders. ''I think I deserve an apology.''
Burnett, until last month a senior adviser on climate change at the Environmental Protection Agency, wrote that Cheney's office was deeply involved in getting nearly half of the CDC's original draft testimony removed.
''The Council on Environmental Quality and the office of the vice president were seeking deletions to the CDC testimony (concerning) ... any discussions of the human health consequences of climate change,''... Cheney’s Office Sought to Change Climate Testimony ... more -
Vegetables attack !!! Salmonella Poisoning
Oh my God! We don't know where its coming from !!!
It's tomatoes .... no its.... peppers.... wait.....
Don't eat vegetables !!! Hysteria !!! Panic !!! Kill the plants before they kill us !!!
More than 1,000 people now have become ill from salmonella initially linked to raw tomatoes, a sobering milestone Wednesday that makes this the worst foodborne outbreak in at least a decade. Adding to the confusion, the government is warning certain people to avoid types of hot peppers, too.
But people at highest risk of severe illness from salmonella also should not eat raw jalapeno and serrano peppers, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged Wednesday. The most vulnerable are the elderly, people with weak immune systems and infants.
Perhaps there was some truth in that move "The Happening".
CDC food safety chief Dr. Robert Tauxe told The Associated Press:
“We are quite sure that neither tomatoes nor jalapenos explain the entire outbreak at this point. ... We’re presuming that both of them have caused illness.”Tauxe said. “But we really are working as hard and as fast as we can to sort out this complicated situation and protect the health of the American people.”
Added FDA food safety chief Dr. David Acheson: “It’s just been a spectacularly complicated and prolonged outbreak.”
The outbreak isn’t over, or even showing any sign of slowing, said Tauxe — with about 25 to 40 cases being a reported a day for weeks now, to a total of 1,017 known since the outbreak began on April 10.
Illnesses now have been reported in 41 states — and even four cases in Canada, although three of those people are believed to have been infected while traveling in the U.S. and the fourth is still being probed. Oh my God! We don't know where its coming from !!! It's tomatoes .... no its.... peppers.... wait..... ... more -
Cheney aides "altered" CDC testimony
Members of Vice President Cheney's staff censored congressional testimony by a top federal official on the health threats posed by global warming.
Former EPA deputy associate administrator Jason K. Burnett said an official from Cheney's office edited out six pages from the testimony of Julie L. Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, last October.
Senator Barbara Boxer, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said the administration feared that Gerberding's testimony would force it to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels. The White House has opposed mandatory limits and insisted that voluntary measures and increased research are the best way to address the problem.
Frank O'Donnell, who heads the advocacy group Clean Air Watch, said the latest revelations confirm that the vice president has been steering the nation's environmental policy during President Bush's tenure.
"For years, we've suspected that Cheney was the puppeteer for administration policy on global warming," O'Donnell said. "This kiss-and-tell account appears to confirm the worst." Members of Vice President Cheney's staff censored congressional testimony by a top federal official on the health threats posed b... more -
Avian Influenza A Virus Infections of Humans
Although avian influenza A viruses usually do not infect humans, rare cases of human infection with avian influenza A viruses have been reported. Most human infections with avian influenza A viruses have occurred following direct contact with infected poultry. Human clinical illness from infection with avian influenza A viruses has ranged from eye infections (conjunctivitis) to severe respiratory disease (pneumonia) to death.
Instances of Avian Influenza A Virus Infections in Poultry
Avian influenza outbreaks among poultry occur worldwide from time to time. Since 1997, for example, and based on the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) reporting criteria for Notifiable Avian Influenza in commercial poultry, the United States has experienced 17 incidents of H5 and H7 low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI), and one incident of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) that was restricted to one poultry farm. The U.S. Department of Agriculture monitored and responded to these incidents.
In 2004, the United States experienced the first highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak among poultry in 20 years. This was an outbreak of avian influenza A (H5N2) which occurred in Texas. The outbreak was reported in a flock of 7,000 chickens in south-central Texas. There was no report of transmission to humans.
H7N3, Canada, 2004: In March 2004, two poultry workers who were assisting in culling operations during a large influenza A (H7N3) poultry outbreak had culture-confirmed H7N3 conjunctivitis, one of whom also had coryza. Both poultry workers recovered. One worker was infected with low pathogenic H7N3 and the other with high pathogenic H7N3.
Jon Fitch, director of the state's Livestock and Poultry Commission, said the birds tested positive for exposure to the H7N3 strain of the virus, not the H5N1 strain that ravaged Asian poultry stocks in late 2003 and has killed 240 people worldwide.
What next? Can humans become infected from wild birds? Although avian influenza A viruses usually do not infect humans, rare cases of human infection with avian influenza A viruses have bee... more -
US life expectancy tops 78!
U.S. life expectancy has hit a new record: 78.1 years for babies born in 2006, says the CDC.
What's more, the death rate for 11 of the top 15 causes of death -- including heart disease, cancer, and stroke -- slowed in 2006.That's what the CDC's preliminary data show, based on some 2.4 million deaths in 2006. Here are the highlights from the CDC's report.
Life ExpectancyLife expectancy in 2006 is about four months longer than it was in 2005, according to the CDC.White women continue to have the longest life expectancy, followed by African-American women, white men, and African-American men. Those patterns have held since 1976, though all groups have seen their life expectancy improve during that time.
Here are the 2006 life expectancy figures for each of those groups:
* White women: 81 years
* African-American women: 76.9 years
* White men: 76 years
* African-American men: 70 years U.S. life expectancy has hit a new record: 78.1 years for babies born in 2006, says the CDC. ... more -
Children in Katrina trailers may face lifelong ailments
The anguish of Hurricane Katrina should have ended for Gina Bouffanie and her daughter when they left their FEMA trailer. But with each hospital visit and each labored breath her child takes, the young mother fears it has just begun.
"It's just the sickness. I can't get rid of it. It just keeps coming back," said Bouffanie, 27, who was pregnant with her now 15-month-old daughter, Lexi, while living in the trailer. "I'm just like, `Oh God, I wish like this would stop.' If I had known it would get her sick, I wouldn't have stayed in the trailer for so long."
The girl, diagnosed with severe asthma, must inhale medicine from a breathing device.
Doctors cannot conclusively link her asthma to the trailer. But they fear she is among tens of thousands of youngsters who may face lifelong health problems because the temporary housing supplied by the Federal Emergency Management Agency contained formaldehyde fumes up to five times the safe level.
The chemical, used in interior glue, was detected in many of the 143,000 trailers sent to the Gulf Coast in 2006. But a push to get residents out of them, spearheaded by FEMA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, did not begin until this past February.
Members of Congress and CDC insiders say the agencies' delay in recognizing the danger is being compounded by studies that will be virtually useless and the lack of a plan to treat children as they grow. The anguish of Hurricane Katrina should have ended for Gina Bouffanie and her daughter when they left their FEMA trailer. But with eac... more -
Check Out Your Chewing Gum, It May Cause Cancer
A substance used to make chewing gum could soon be declared toxic by the federal government after an international agency found that it might cause cancer in lab rats. A substance used to make chewing gum could soon be declared toxic by the federal government after an international agency found that i... more
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